By CHERYL ROMANO/YachatsNews.com
At Fresh Mexican Food in Waldport, indoor dining closed for five days in mid-January. At The Sea Note in Yachats, the co-owner has been working double shifts daily as a cook. At The Adobe Resort, the general manager recently ran the front desk and attended a virtual City Council meeting at the same time.
The culprit is mainly staff shortages and absences due to the latest wave of Covid-19 infections and exposures in Lincoln County. The number of reported cases in the county so far in January hit 1,680 on Wednesday – more than double the number of the highest case for a full month last year.
And, Lincoln County health officials said Wednesday, the actual number of cases could be four times that much because of the proliferation of in-home tests now reaching much of the public. Most positive cases from in-home tests are not being reported.
The additional problem with this surge of Covid-19 cases, is the sheer number of people who have tested positive, not feeling ill but still must stay home to quarantine, or to help care for someone in their household who is sick.
In an already squeaky-tight labor market, every worker who calls in sick or is in quarantine, puts an added burden on the staff already scrambling. As they struggle to keep serving meals and providing clean, safe accommodations, managers and owners speak with one voice: “We’re doing the best we can.”
“We didn’t have enough employees” to open the doors to inside dining for a while in January, said Fresh Mexican manager Gibino Juan, who also works as dishwasher, waiter and cook. Only take-out orders were filled for five days, due to staff calling in sick. “The waitresses are all okay now,” he said.
How are customers responding to the service cuts? “They understand,” he said. “Sometimes we get really busy, we say ‘Sorry the food is taking so long’ — but people have been patient.”
Last weekend, customers who wanted to dine at The Drift Inn in Yachats on Friday and Saturday nights were greeted with a “Closed due to staffing” sign on the front door.
“I had one waitress working lunch, and you can’t serve dinners with one waitress,” said owner Linda Hetzler.
Another closure occurred Tuesday night.
“I have staff calling in saying they have Covid, or are in quarantine, or were exposed to someone infected — it’s a lot of things hitting at the same time,” she said.” At this time of year, even getting a cold or the flu can be problematic when you’re working around a lot of people.”
Thanking customers for “being tolerant and patient,” Hetzler said, “We’re all trying our hardest to make good food and serve everybody who comes in.”
Slower winter season a blessing
If there’s any up side to the situation, it’s the calendar. In the traditionally slower winter months, gaps in staffing aren’t quite as painful as they’d be at the height of the summer.
“If this was the summer, we’d be in trouble,” said Drew Roslund, who oversees operations at the Fireside Motel and Overleaf Lodge & Spa. “We start out one day okay, and then three people don’t show up to work.”
Asked if the sick calls are due to Covid, he said “We haven’t had any new cases that we’re aware of,” since a few months ago. “We hope our guests understand that if we haven’t opened certain amenities fully, like our spa, it’s because we’re still protecting our guests and our staff as best we can. We’re doing the best we can.”
Toward that goal of safety, the lobby of the Overleaf will be remodeled later this season to eliminate the open breakfast buffet.
“Even with all the protective equipment possible, in an open buffet you can have 120, 130 people going through, everyone breathing near the food and breathing the same air. We don’t feel a buffet line is safe anymore,” he said. The remodel will allow servers in protective gear to dish out food to guests.
The winter slowdown has been a kind of blessing at the Sea Note bar and restaurant in Yachats. “It’s been slow, so we’re fine with wait staff,” said co-owner Rosetta Dimicelli. “It’s just cooks we’re short on.”
That’s why her son/co-owner Brian has been working two shifts a day cooking. At the Salty Dawg in Waldport, which Dimicelli owns, “Everybody there has been working for me for years; they pretty much all show up.”
A bigger problem than staff is supply chain disruptions, she said. “We can’t get supplies; everybody’s out of everything,” she reported. “We’re having to buy stuff like barbecue sauce from Amazon, which charges a lot more than our usual vendors.”
Price fluctuations are also making it tough to plan menus, she said. “One week hamburger is $2.69 a pound, the next week it’s $7.69 a pound; everybody’s just gouging. I don’t think anybody knows how tough it is to run a restaurant these days.”
Her message to the public: “We’re doing the best we can.”
That’s the same message from Anthony Muirhead, general manager of the Adobe Resort, Yachats’ largest hotel/restaurant complex. “When you’re already short-staffed and you lose three, four or five people because they’re quarantined, you have almost nobody … it creates a hardship,” he said.
“If people walk in and are told that the lounge is closed, it’s not because we want it to be closed — it’s because we have no one to staff it,” he said. That lack of staff recently forced Muirhead, a Yachats city councilor, to work the front desk while attending a virtual council meeting at the same time.
“We’ll continue to operate with the staff we have on hand,” Muirhead said. “Sometimes, we don’t know what that is until a few hours before we open.”
His message to the public: “I know it can be frustrating. Please be patient; we’re doing the best we can.”
- Cheryl Romano is a Yachats freelance reporter who contributes regularly to YachatsNews.com. She can be reached at Wordsell@gmail.com